


The Quiet Ocean Taken

by notluvulongtime



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notluvulongtime/pseuds/notluvulongtime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At 221B, Sherlock throws a significant surprise party with a Hawaiian theme for Lestrade after the events of Baskerville.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quiet Ocean Taken

**Author's Note:**

> I've written fanfic before, just not for Sherlock. This would be the first one. So please, be gentle.

The flat was noisy, but it was remarkably clean. Not just of drugs, apparently, but just about every ongoing experiment of Sherlock’s as well, every bit of stray newspaper. It was like the Christmas party all over again, but in place of fairy lights, there were lit fake tiki torches strategically placed throughout the living area that gave 221B its homey glow.

 

Everyone was there from his team. Well, they had to be. They had been in on it in the first place. Sherlock had conjured up a fake murder that drizzling morning and by drenched afternoon, Greg was convinced that he’d found what the team had been looking for and was yet again withholding evidence. To be quite frank, he’d been more than a little annoyed with Sherlock; after Baskerville, he thought that their friendship – the one he’d managed to forge between himself, the consulting detective and the ex-army doctor – would make such antics well and done with by now.

 

Until Martha had let him and Sally in and he ran up the stairs and knocked on the door – only to be greeted by a loud “Surprise!”

 

And now he was faced with a rather surreal party he was forced to host.

 

“John,” he pulled the man aside after being given a mai tai to sip, “What is this for again?”

 

“What?” John stood back a little and frowned, “You don’t know? It’s in case you fancied another holiday.”

 

Greg looked at him blankly, uncomprehending.

 

John’s frown morphed back into a weak, apologetic smile and his shoulders relaxed, “Sorry, I thought you’d remember what you’d said back at the hotel. No, Sherlock noticed the, uh, tan line…on your wedding ring finger…”

 

Greg glanced down at his hand holding the drink with the pink umbrella and back up again with a squint. The line was fading into his skin with each passing day, “My tan line.”

 

John looked as though anticipating a flare up of some kind, but proceeded anyway, “He…well, when we came back, I told him you were in the midst of divorce proceedings – “

 

“You didn’t!”

 

“ – and Sherlock kept track of the progress. He knew when it was final – “

 

“Mycroft bloody Holmes, this has your name written all over it – “

 

“Greg,” John put a hand on his shoulder in reassurance, “Sherlock just wants to be supportive. I think…” He then pulled them both into the hallway, away from the noise, “I think he feels badly about that deduction. About your wife having the affair with the P.E. teacher – “

 

“It was the _maths_ teacher.” Greg shook his head with a rueful chuckle, “He always gets one thing wrong.”

 

“ – So he’s actually concerned he hurt you. This party is to celebrate your new…bachelorhood, I suppose. And to show you that Sherlock supports you. We both do, actually.”

 

At last, Greg could feel the knowledge, the purposefulness of the day, John’s soothing words smooth out his shoulders, the lines around his eyes. “Why can’t he just talk to me, then, eh? Why the big…luau?”

 

“He knew you’d escaped to Kaua’i for that holiday. I think it shocked him how far you went to get away from London, from your wife, from everyone.” John’s head turned to where Sherlock was standing – by the barely-cracked open window, his back to them. “You know how he is. When he doesn’t understand something, his response is usually a literal one. When he thought he’d offended me, he went overboard and said he only has me as a friend and we both know that isn’t true.”

 

“Didn’t know the skinny bastard cared.”

 

John pulled back and offered up that mysterious smile of his, “Why don’t you continue this conversation with _him_. I have the ice bucket to fill again, it seems.”  But before he went off, he grabbed one of those wretched flower blooms on a tray near the door, “Oh and humor me; put this behind your ear. You’re the only one not wearing one and it’s your party, so –“

 

“You can’t be serious – “

 

John gave that condescending look he so often gave when people wouldn’t comply with medical orders, but he didn’t have to. Out of the corner of Greg’s vision, Sherlock had finally turned from the windows.

 

He had one of those ridiculous flowers tucked behind his left ear. It was amazing that such a relatively tiny bloom hadn’t been overwhelmed by the mass of curls.

 

*   *   *

 

“Did you know that every pineapple plant can only produce two fruit at a time and that it takes a two-year duration?” Greg muttered through a mouthful of fresh, ripe fruit as the tray of it had been passed around, “Makes me savor it all the more, knowing the time it takes to grow. Used to gobble these up in less than ten minutes…”

 

So far, the conversation felt a bit odd and stilted. For once, Sherlock seemed to be trying his best not to talk about cases, the unsolved pile pushed off to one side on Greg’s desk back at the Yard.

 

“I’m not responsible for the fresh fruit or flowers.” Sherlock watched him eat and sipped his mai tai while wincing, “Mycroft had everything flown in.”

 

“And I appreciate the person who asked him to. Sure you don’t want some, Sunshine?”

 

Greg stabbed a bite-sized piece of pineapple and brought it to Sherlock’s lips, pleased when the latter opened his mouth and relented.

 

It was surprisingly delightful to watch him chew and swallow. The lad never ate enough as it was. Greg grinned.

 

“I think the team saw that – “

 

“And if they mention it at the next crime scene, I will not hold back my personal deductions – “

 

“When do you ever?”

 

“What’s interesting to me about this herbaceous perennial is not the cultivation aspect but that the fruit is arranged in two interlocking helices, eight in one direction, thirteen in another, each being a Fibonacci number –“

 

“ _Fascinating_.” Greg said it in a perfect, albeit mocking, imitation of John Hamish Watson.

 

“You shouldn’t, you know,” Sherlock sniffed, “You stopped giving me praise long ago.”

 

“I didn’t know you still needed it.” Greg’s tone shifted to one of seriousness. He hadn’t seen Sherlock this agitated. Not since the early days, “What’re you on about, Sunshine? You’ve been fidgety during this whole party, but according to John, you threw this for me from your own idea. For what it’s worth, I prefer the bitter sarcasm you dole out to me daily. You’re frightening me a bit –“

 

“All right, Detective Inspector.”

 

“All right, Sherlock.”

 

“What can you deduce about my appearance. I know you only pretend to be dim – “

 

“And that’s because you don’t like it when I argue with you –“

 

“Deduce, Lestrade. Look at me, tell me what is different and why.”

 

Greg put down his drink on the side table behind Sherlock, folded his arms and took a step forward, “Okay. Let’s see. Same Sherlock suit, brand of which I don’t give an arse –“

 

“Spencer Hart – “

 

“Was about to say that,” Greg wagged a finger at him, “Y’know this won’t work the way you like if you can’t keep quiet.” It was said in a low, gravelly tone. The only one that seemed to mollify Sherlock and it didn’t fail now. “Good.”

 

Greg then looked down between them. “New shoes for the occasion, not quite worn in, so they’re pinching your toes, part of the reason why you’re uncomfortable,” he looked up again, into Sherlock’s eyes, which could not meet his.

 

_Could not. Not ‘would not.’ Interesting._

 

So much was behind those opalescent orbs; usually it shone unabashed belief, fascination, and drive.

 

Greg had to pull back in his vision. And then he noticed it. Smiled. Laughed, even.

 

“What?” Sherlock frowned.

 

“You made a mistake, Sherlock.” Greg then reached out for the flower behind the other man’s ear, “You’ve got it on the wrong side – “

 

Surprisingly, Sherlock swatted Greg’s hand away like a schoolboy. “No, I haven’t. Leave it be.” He said it with such vehemence, Greg was forced to pause for a beat.

 

“According to island tradition,” Sherlock continued, looking away, “wearing a flower behind the left ear signifies that you are taken or married. On the right, it signifies that you are available.”

 

Greg smiled sadly and reached behind them both for his drink again, “So who’s the lucky idiot?”

 

Suddenly, he felt a warm hand grasp the one going for the mai tai and looked up to see Sherlock’s clear eyes finally locking his in a gaze.

 

“You.” He breathed, “You’re the idiot.”

 

Greg’s fingers turned to jelly and the entire room’s noise seemed to fuzz out in a second, but only just. He swallowed, remembered where they were and got his bearings again. With his other hand, he reached out and unpried Sherlock’s slightly shaking fingers from his wrist and gently interlaced his own with his.

 

With the other hand, he deftly moved the bloom from behind his own right ear to the one that was correct, the one where they both apparently had wanted it to reside in the first place.

**Author's Note:**

> The island flower worn by both characters is the plumeria (aka frangipani). It's pronounced "melia" in Hawaii. "Melia" also means "quiet ocean."


End file.
